Detroit Tigers All-Time All-Stars

Jun 13, 2015; Detroit, MI, USA; Detroit Tigers first baseman Miguel Cabrera (24) in the dugout against the Cleveland Indians at Comerica Park. Mandatory Credit: Rick Osentoski-USA TODAY Sports

First Base: TIE Hank Greenberg and Miguel Cabrera

If Miguel Cabrera was still at third base, this would be an easy choice, but it is hard to choose between Miggy and Hank Greenberg, so we will kiss our sister and call it a tie.

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First Hammerin’ Hank.

Before Cabrera came around, Greenberg was arguably the best slugger in Detroit Tigers’ history. The bulk of his Tigers’ career came from 1933 to 1946 with nearly a four-year interruption for military service during WWII.

He helped the Tigers win their first pennant in 25 years in his second full year in the majors in 1934, hitting .339 and launching 26 home runs. The following year, in 1935, he led baseball with 36 homers and brought the very first World Series title to Detroit.

Hank returned to the Tigers after three plus years of military service on July 1, 1945 and homered in his first game in nearly four years. In 78 games during the 1945 season, Greenberg launched 13 homers and hit .311. He hit a pennant-winning grand slam on the final day of the season, and contributed two homers with an average of .300 over a seven-game World Series victory over the Chicago Cubs.

He finished his 13-year major league career with a .313 average, 331 homers and 1,276 RBIs. He was elected to the Baseball Hall-of-Fame in 1956 and had his number five retired by the Tigers in 1983.

In one of the more lopsided trades in baseball history, the Florida Marlins, perhaps worried that Cabrera would command too much in future income, began shopping him around baseball. Many were interested, but the Detroit Tigers won the sweepstakes by shipping Andrew Miller, Dallas Trahern, Eulogio De La Cruz, Burke Badenhop, Cameron Maybin and Mike Rabelo to Florida for Miggy and Dontrelle Willis.

Miggy didn’t miss a beat changing leagues. While his average dipped below .300 for the first time in four seasons, he still managed to hit 27 homers and drive in 127. The following year began his current streak of .300 seasons, and nearly each season has seen that average rise.

He won the Triple Crown in 2012 with numbers of .330, 44 homers and 139 RBIs (all career highs). And yet thorough much of 2013, he was on a better pace than his final 2012 numbers. Ultimately, the injuries hampered him and he again finished with 44 homers, good for second in the AL, but won his third straight batting title with an average of .348.

Injuries have slowed him down the last couple years, but when he is healthy, there is not one player more fun to watch in the game right now.

Next: Second Base

Credit: Boston Public Library https://goo.gl/DwKUY0

2B-Charlie Gehringer

With apologies to the close runner-up in this position, Lou Whitaker, Charlie Gehringer was something special.

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In his second full season in the big leagues (1927), Charlie became a star under new manager George Moriarty. In the years of Lou Gehrig‘s consecutive games streak, Gehringer was the Tigers’ Iron Man, playing every game from 1928 to 1930, 1933 to 1934, and 1936. He led the league in runs (131), hits (215), doubles (45), triples (19) and steals (19) in 1929.

On the defensive side, he was a very good defender and spent more than 1,000 games forming a keystone combination with shortstop Billy Rogell.

Gehringer was the lone Tigers’ representative in the very first All-Star Game, held at Comiskey Park in Chicago in 1933, and led the team in average in the pennant-winning seasons of 1934 and 1935. He hit .371 in 1937, which was a career high and earned him the MVP.

Charlie was a six-time All-Star, won three pennants, one World Series, an MVP, and batting title. His number two was retired alongside Greenberg’s number five in a ceremony at Tiger Stadium in 1983, and he was elected to the Baseball Hall-of-Fame in 1949 with more than 85 percent of the vote.

Next: Shortstop

Apr 6, 2015; Detroit, MI, USA; Detroit Tigers special assistant to the general manager Alan Trammell pitch during batting practice before the game against the Minnesota Twins at Comerica Park. Mandatory Credit: Rick Osentoski-USA TODAY Sports

SS-Alan Trammell

It is such a crying shame that Alan Trammell is not in the Hall-of-Fame. No one can quite explain the reason for Tram’s exclusion, but it is just wrong.

But let’s not dwell on the negative, let’s look at the positive for his terrific career.

Those seasons of 1983 and 1984 were among the best of Tram’s career. He notched double-digit home runs for the first time in his career (14 in both ’83 and ’84) and hit .319 and .314 respectively. He had a .351 average with three homers and nine RBIs in the 1984 postseason and won the World Series MVP.

After a couple off-years while battling injuries, Sparky Anderson asked a healthy Trammell to anchor the Tigers’ 1987 lineup and bat cleanup. He responded with the best year of his storied career, setting career highs with a .343 average, 28 homers and 105 RBIs. When it appeared the Tigers would miss out on the postseason after falling behind the Toronto Blue Jays in the standings, Tram came to life. He hit at a .416 clip in September, lifting the Tigers to an astonishing come-from-behind AL East title.

Defensively, Trammell wasn’t thought of in the same sentence as defense-first guys like Ozzie Smith, but he was steady and rarely made miscues or cost his team runs with errors. He won five Gold Gloves during his career and, along with Whitaker, formed the longest continuous double-play combination in baseball history (19 years and more than 2,000 games).

The first face that you see in your mind when you think of the 1984 Detroit Tigers is probably Alan Trammell. It is a good thing he is back with the organization.

Next: Third Base

Credit: Baseball Collection https://goo.gl/I3RjCE

3B-George Kell

Unlike most guys on this list, George Kell was not a homegrown Detroit Tiger, but he will always be remembered as one of the best players for the franchise on the field and probably the most iconic TV voice of all-time for the team.

Kell came to the Tigers at the prime of his career in the middle of the 1946 season after beginning his career with the Philadelphia Athletics. He hit .327 that first year and never looked back. In parts of seven seasons in Detroit, Kell hit below .300 only once (.296 in 1952 before being traded to the Boston Red Sox).

Kell made the All-Star Game every season he was with the Tigers except the first and last and was also very solid defensively.

After bouncing around the American League the rest of his career, he finished up with the Baltimore Orioles and toyed around with broadcasting with the team before coming to the Tigers in the early days of TV in 1959. One year later he convinced his partner from Baltimore broadcasts to come to Detroit. That partner was Ernie Harwell.

No Tigers’ fan who grew up in the 1970’s and 1980’s will ever forget that characteristic southern drawl of Kell calling Tigers’ games along with fellow Tigers’ legend Al Kaline.

Next: Catcher

Credit: Flickr Creative Commons user Femaletrumpet02 (https://www.flickr.com/photos/femaletrumpet02/)

C-Bill Freehan

Bill Freehan‘s full-time career with the Detroit Tigers began in 1964, hitting .300 with 18 homers and 80 RBIs. That year began a streak of 10 straight All-Star appearances which included seven starts for the University of Michigan product. He began another streak the following year, 1965, when he collected the first of four straight Gold Glove awards.

Bill had an accurate canon behind home, throwing out a league-leading 53 percent of would-be stealers in 1964. While that exceptionally high number would plateau in later seasons, he would never dip below 32 percent in that category the rest of his career, save for his last year when he saw limited action. He was rewarded for catching the last 30-game winner in baseball, placing second in the MVP voting in 1968, behind teammate and 31-game winner Denny McLain.

All told, Freehan was known more for his glove than bat, yet when he retired in 1976 he had 200 home runs and 2,502 total bases, placing him behind just Yogi Berra andBill Dickey for American League catchers (both of whom are in the Hall-of-Fame). He held the highest career fielding percentage of .9933 until 2002 and held the record for putouts (9,941) until 1988.

Next: Outfield 1

Credit: Aaron Webb https://goo.gl/RB5qwD

OF-Ty Cobb

One of the best players in the history of the game, and easily the game’s premier player before Babe Ruth came along, Ty Cobb is still one of the most iconic figures in baseball.

Betsided

In his second full year in baseball, the Georgia Peach batted a league-leading .350. In 1911 and 1912, he hit over .400 and never hit below .334 the rest of his time in Detroit, including his third .400 plus season late in his career (1922).

He won the Triple Crown in 1909 and was named the AL MVP (in a forerunner to the award that would begin to be annually presented in the 1930’s).

Cobb’s career was over before the All-Star era, but even if he never represented the American League in a game, he certainly was the best Tiger of all time.

Cobb was the hits leader with 4,191 for many decades until Pete Rose surpassed him in 1985. He still holds the highest career batting average in baseball history at .366, and was a charter member of the Baseball Hall-of-Fame in 1936.

Next: Outfield 2

May 25, 2013; Detroit, MI, USA; Detroit Tigers former player Al Kaline speaks during a ceremony to honor the 1968 world series team before the game between the Detroit Tigers and the Minnesota Twins at Comerica Park. Mandatory Credit: Rick Osentoski-USA TODAY Sports

OF-Al Kaline

No Detroit Tigers historical list could ever be complete without “Mr. Tiger.” There are perhaps just two faces on the Tigers’ Mt. Rushmore–Ty Cobb and Al Kaline.

After coming to the Detroit Tigers in 1953, just months after his high school graduation, Al really came into his own in 1955, posting a league leading 200 hits and .340 average, finishing second to Yogi Berra for the AL MVP. This was also the season in which Kaline began his long 13-year All-Star streak (18 appearances in all).

The Tigers were a lousy franchise during the 1950’s, but Kaline kept fans coming to Briggs Stadium. Not only did he hit for power and average, he rarely struck out.

As great as he was at the plate, he may have been even better defensively. A ten-time Gold Glove winner, Al Kaline had one of the best arms of any right fielder in baseball history. Not only was he accurate with his throw, he had a precise system for positioning himself properly to get the most out of his cannon arm.

On Sept. 24, 1974, just about a week before his final game, Al reached the 3,000-hit plateau (the last Tiger to do so) in his hometown of Baltimore. He finished with 3,007 hits, a .297 average, 399 homers, and 1,583 RBIs. Al Kaline was elected to the Hall-of-Fame on his first ballot with 88.3 percent of the vote in 1980 and was the first Tiger to have his number retired by the franchise. As great of a player as he was, imagine if he could have stayed healthy.

Next: Outfield 3

Credit: Timothy Fenn: https://goo.gl/1Fi8Xv

OF-Harry Heilmann

As the Ty Cobb era began to close in Detroit, a rising star began to emerge that would soon replace the aging veteran in the hearts and minds of Tigers’ fans from 100 years ago. That player was rightfielder Harry Heilmann.

Hitting was in Harry’s DNA, winning the AL Batting title in 1921, 1923, 1925 and 1927. He was the last Tiger, and second-to-last American League player (Ted Williams) to finish a season hitting above .400 (at .403 in 1923).

He did not come into his own at the plate until his fourth year in the majors, 1919 in which he hit over .300 for the first time. He never hit under .344 as a member of the Tigers.

Heilmann joined his fellow outfield legend Ty Cobb in the Baseball Hall of Fame in 1951.

Next: DH

Jul 6, 2015; Seattle, WA, USA; Detroit Tigers designated hitter Victor Martinez (41) singles against the Seattle Mariners during the sixth inning at Safeco Field. Mandatory Credit: Joe Nicholson-USA TODAY Sports

DH-Victor Martinez

We have often talked on Motor City Bengals this year that the Detroit Tigers’ lineup with and without Victor Martinez is like night and day.

He is finally look like the players that almost became the first designated hitter to win the MVP award last season. At the age of 35, Victor had a career year in 2014, posting 32 homers, 33 doubles and 103 RBIs. He was tops in baseball with a .974 OPS and intentional walks with 28.

When healthy, Martinez has produced. He made an immediate impact his first year in Detroit, hitting .330 and driving in over 100 runs in 2011. He helped turn an underachieving team into a division winner by 15 games.

Next: Starting Pitcher

(L to R) Tom Seats, Hal Newhouser and Archie McKain. Credit: Boston Public Library, Flickr Creative Commons http://goo.gl/qnxtUc

SP-Hal Newhouser

Hall of Famer Hal Newhouser had a slow start to his career before busting out in the mid-1940’s.  By 1943 he was up to 144 strikeouts and then he blew away batters in back-to-back years, striking out 187 and 212 respectively in 1944 and 1945.

The Tigers had a pair of near-misses in 1944. The ballclub finished just one-game behind the St. Louis Browns for the AL Pennant. It was the first and only appearance in the World Series for the woeful American League franchise in St. Louis that would move to Baltimore and become the Orioles nine years later.

Up until 1944, Newhouser hadn’t won double-digits games in one season, but he just missed out on the mythical 30-win plateau, going 29-9. He pitched 300+ innings in both 1944 and 45, coincidentally winning the AL MVP in each season and the pitching Triple Crown in 1945.

Speaking of 1945, Hal pitched in relief in a late season game that clinched the Fall Classic trip. They would go on to beat the Chicago Cubs in seven games to capture the franchise’s second World Series title. Playing at Wrigley Field in Game 7, Newhouser threw a complete game in the 9-3 win.

His dominance through baseball continued into post-war times when all the stars had come back from overseas. He won another 26 games, posting a microscopic ERA of 1.94 in 1946. Hal just missed out on his third straight MVP award, finishing a close second to Ted Williams.

His number 16 is retired and displayed on the brick wall at Comerica Park along with his statue. Newhouser was elected to the Hall-of-Fame in 1992 and passed away seven years later.

Next: Tigers Midseason Report Card